


King of Hearts

by SunshineMoonRX



Category: Kamen Rider Zi-O
Genre: M/M, but we're ignoring stuff like who lived and died, lighthearted nonsense, post-everything including rider time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:02:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29679528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunshineMoonRX/pseuds/SunshineMoonRX
Summary: Heure finally works up the courage to ask Sougo out, but he’s gonna need some advice. The Zi-O cast is astoundingly unhelpful.(Post-Rider Time Decade, but only peripheral spoilers because we’re kind of just ignoring inconvenient things like character deaths? It’s what Zi-O would do.)
Relationships: Tokiwa Sougo/Heure
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	King of Hearts

He was going to do it. Heure’s breath caught in his throat as he made himself think it. Before the end of the day, he was asking Tokiwa Sougo out.

But how? What to say? Sougo didn’t exactly keep his feelings to himself, but he rarely if ever talked about romance. What was his type? His ideal date?

Heure scratched his head, making his way through the school gates as the morning bell rung--and suddenly found himself sitting in an unused classroom, all the desks pushed to the edge but the one he was sitting in--and opposite him Myoukoin Geiz, who looked equally startled to be here.

“Wh…?”

“It was gonna take you _ages_ to start asking Tokiwa’s friends for advice.” Hora, back in her old Time Jacker outfit, leaned in through the doorway. “I fast-forwarded through the boring stuff. You’re welcome.”

“As if I would ask _this_ jackass!” Heure waved a dismissive hand at Geiz. “You just set something up you think is funny!”

Geiz frowned at the insult but moved past it, glaring back over his shoulder at her. “Exactly. Why do _I_ have to do it? Aren’t you the romance guru?”

Hora grinned. “I’ve got important Time Jacker stuff today. Good luck!” She slipped back through the door, vanishing with a flickering glow to who knew what timeline.

Heure slumped back into his seat with a sigh. “Just so you know...I _am_ doing it. Asking Tokiwa out. Today. And I don’t need your permission.”

Geiz seemed to be searching for a response, something finally occurring to him after a minute. His eyes flicked off to the side for a moment, and he spoke slowly. “About that. I should...apologise. When you confessed to Sougo, I was...pretty rude.”

“You could say that.”

“Look--” Geiz took a deep breath, touching his forehead for a second before returning his eyes to the same odd position. “No, you’re right. You should be able to like who you like, without fear of appraisal.”

“...appraisal?”

“Uh...wait, does that say ‘reprisal’?”

Heure spun in his chair, following Geiz’s line of sight to the window behind him, on the other side of which stood Tsukuyomi, fumbling with an assortment of flashcards detailing out the speech he’d just been giving. Heure slowly turned back to face front, arching an eyebrow.

“Um...so...forget you saw that?”

“No.”

* * *

“Sorry about that, really,” Tsukuyomi said, following Heure back down the corridor. “It was my idea, not his. I figured he wanted to apologise, and since he’s not good with words…”

“Still, Hora…” Heure threw up his hands in frustration. “I can’t believe it’s lunch already! She fast-forwarded me through maths! How am I gonna understand the homework?”

“Most of us would kill to skip maths,” Tsukuyomi said with a chuckle. “But I think Hora was trying to help. Like Sougo always says, he and Geiz are _besties_. If anyone knows him…” She slowed down as they passed through a side-door to where the school fields began. “Heck, in another timeline it was Sougo, not me, he was carrying a torch for.”

“ _Really_?” Heure gaped. “Myoukoin?”

She nodded. “He thinks he’s the only one who remembers, but it was pretty intense…”

Heure stopped against a tree, careful to avoid letting the bark stain his shirt. “You think I should just be direct? With Tokiwa? I already gave him the love letter and all...”

“I dunno…” Tsukuyomi looked back at him. “I’ve only ever had one person come up to me and...well, that wasn’t even a crush, that was a Kamen Rider fan.”

“Fan?”

“Oh yeah, so, we’re all fictional characters in a TV show. One time a kid from the real world contracted with an Imagin to meet us. Well, mainly Zi-O and Build…”

Heure blinked. “Yeah, your whole friend group is fuckin’ weird. I’m gonna go talk to somebody normal.”

* * *

As it turned out, the closest to “normal” he could find among Tokiwa Sougo’s acquaintances was ordinary thirty-year-old high school student Kaito Daiki, currently perched on a shoulder-high wall behind the main building, enjoying a homemade lunch he’d stolen from a first-year.

“Hey, little lovebird,” he said, polishing off a riceball with relish. “What can I do for you?”

Heure folded his arms. “Look, you like that Kadoya Tsukasa guy, right? How’d you ask him out?”

“Hmm…” Daiki stretched himself out along the wall on his back, eyes closed. “I wouldn’t say _asked out_ , exactly. We met when I was infiltrating his evil lair, you know how it is.”

“Sure.”

“That’s certainly when I found my two greatest treasures,” the sneak-thief said wistfully.

“So love is a ‘treasure’...” Heure nodded. “What was the second?”

“Hm? Oh, this gun.” Daiki produced the Diendriver with a flourish.

Heure almost fell over. “Don’t bring that to school!”

“Eh, I’ll consider it.” Daiki stuck it back down his pants. “But, you know, we’ve been on-again, off-again...sometimes he’s risking his life to free you from your past, sometimes he’s betraying your trust and pretending to kill all the Super Sentai _without_ you, so you have to teach him a lesson with the nearest giant robot to hand, and maybe have a rebound fling with a hot moody pirate, but his crew kind of have a whole thing going and anyway, the next I hear Tsukasa’s telling Rider #1 I died or some shit.”

“This doesn’t feel like it’s about me anymore.”

“Wait, you’re still here?”

* * *

Heure mooched along in the golden afternoon light. Sougo was half a block ahead, telling some stupid joke Geiz and Tsukuyomi were trying not to laugh at. God, he was so ridiculous.

Heure shook his head, drawing back into himself. This was it. School was out. He only had the time it took for their routes home to diverge. But no matter how much he willed himself, he couldn’t move closer. He came to a halt by a tall hedgerow. His mouth was dry, his palms wet. Sougo wasn’t even thirty feet away, and yet…

_Wait. Hang on. I’m within thirty feet of Sougo, which means…_

He cleared this throat. “Woz, can I have a sec?”

On cue, the robed prophet emerged from a gap in the hedge with a twirl. “How may I assist you?” He held up a finger, delaying the reply for a moment as his other hand flipped open his ever-present tome. “Ah, as is written in this book, you have spent much of the day paralysed by your desire for my overlord, have you not?”

“I...something like that.” Heure pressed forward. “Look, you know an unhealthy amount about Tokiwa. How do you think he’ll react? He’s, uh, not straight, is he?”

Woz smiled gently. “Were I to draw up a list of the qualities my overlord finds agreeable, gender would be _rather_ far below such things as praise and admiration. You are well-acquainted with your own reasons for desiring him, are you not?”

“Of course!” Heure said, hiding his mouth behind a hand as he spoke. “That sunny smile of his...the way he cheers you up by saying the weirdest stuff...how he’s always wearing baggy clothes, like he thinks he’s bigger than he is...and that ridiculous dream of his…”

“Whoa, I knew you liked me but that’s so sweet of you…” Heure all but jumped out of his skin hearing Sougo’s voice from right behind him.

“T-T-Tokiwa! You, uh...you heard all that?”

“You weren’t exactly being quiet. That was the plan, right, Woz?”

Woz gave a slight bow. “Impressively deduced, my overlord. I thought it the most expedient way to convey young Heure’s feelings to you.” He shuffled closer to Sougo. “Might I add, sire, that the so-called ‘Sougo B’ of that parallel timeline still roams our world, and _he_ is already furnished with a devoted partner. It would not do for you to lag behind…”

“Yes, yes.” Sougo gently ushered Woz out of the way, laying a hand on Heure’s shoulder with a slight smile. “It must’ve been hard to get the words out, right?”

Heure nodded. “I guess I just...didn’t know how you’d take it. You didn’t quite _reject_ my love letter back then, but you didn’t really...reciprocate either.”

Sougo nodded. “Yeah, I gave it some thought, and...ah, you know, it was a weird few days. I figured it was best to wait for your next move and see how I feel.”

“And…?”

“And turns out what I like best, is people who like me!” Sougo smirked. “But y’know, you’re pretty cute now you got my attention.”

“Th-Then…” Heure gulped, gathering his courage as his cheeks flushed hot. “How about Saturday for a date? We can...head into town…you know that one crepe place...?”

“Sounds great.” Sougo reached forward and, somewhere from the heights Heure’s soul was astral-projecting, he felt fingers intertwine with his. What brought him back down to earth was, of course, a familiar bellow.

“ _Rejoice!_ ” Woz proclaimed to the empty twilit street. “The heir to the power of all Riders, crossing past and future, the ruler of time...has in this moment selected a worthy consort! Their mutual affection now stands before you!”

Heure burst out laughing despite himself. “The closer I get to you, the weirder it all gets.”

“You knew that going in, right?” Sougo raised Heure’s clasped hand between them, squeezing it tight. “I get the feeling we can do this.”


End file.
